I’ve been in London for four and a half months. It feels
like no time at all (and I guess in the big scheme of things, it really is no time
at all). It looks like the old cliché is true and time really does fly when
you’re having fun, moving house, getting to grips with a new job and settling
in to a new(-ish) city.
And things are going well. There’s just one teeny tiny blip.
And it’s a hard one to admit. But I’m going to put it out there because I’ve a
feeling that it might be one of those things that happens a lot but often isn’t
mentioned because, well, it’s a bit embarrassing. The truth is, after four
months in London, I haven’t made any new friends.* Not one. Nobody.
Why?
Okay, so let’s just get this possibility out of the way
first. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m some sort of social pariah, incapable of making
friends. But, I’m reassuring myself that
this can’t be true because I already have a truly awesome group of friends:
friends from school, friends from uni, friends from my year abroad, friends
from Cambridge, all sorts of wonderful friends.
Now, admittedly, I’m never going to win a prize for being
the most outgoing, talkative person in the room. I’m quite shy and fairly
introverted, especially when I meet new people. When you’re shy, sometimes
people just dismiss you as being aloof and passive so I’m really not making
things easy for myself.
So, if the
problem isn’t (totally) me, then why don’t I already have a whole set of new
London friends? Well, as it turns out, it’s tricky finding friends when you’re
29 and working full-time in a super-busy city. The simple days of primary
school friendships (‘oh, hey, we’re sitting next to each other, you’re my best
friend now!) are long gone. I’m even getting slightly nostalgic for my time as
a first-year undergrad when everything was geared around meeting new people
(Fresher’s Week, Fresher’s Fair, Fresher’s Ball…there are few more intense
friendship periods than that first term at uni. By the second term, of course,
you’ve realized that most of your flatmates are, in fact, mad and you wonder
what on earth you wrote on your application form to put you in the same flat as
them!).
Partly,
it’s a question of time. I leave for work at 8 in the morning and get home
again around 7ish. Some nights I go to the gym or to yoga, so then I’m not home
till 9ish. Now, maybe I just have bad time management but getting in at 9
doesn’t leave me with a huge amount of ‘friend-meeting’ time. So, being an
industrious sort of woman, I decided to multi-task. Why not turn the hobbies
that I already have into opportunities to meet new people? Good plan. And so…
Will you be my friend lovely zen-yoga ladies?
The yogis
would be my friends. Right? That’s the whole spirit of yoga, isn’t it? Peace,
love and zen-friendship. And I’m in Hampstead, pretty much yoga-central
(seriously, if you’re not toting a yoga-mat around the streets of Hampstead you
look out of place). I found a lovely class with a great teacher. But…hmmm…it’s
sort of tricky to start a conversation in a yoga class. I mean, there’s a
friendly-looking girl in front of you and another friendly-looking girl behind
you. But you’re all in down dog and so you feel a bit weird talking to the girl
in front cause now you’re looking at her butt, and you feel a bit weird talking
to the girl behind because she’s looking at your butt (and you’re worrying that
your old leggings might be a bit see-through…or maybe that’s just me!).
And, if you
do manage a quick hello it’s normally followed by an even quicker “ssshhh…I’m
trying to be in the moment,” from some impossibly zen yogi.
The end of
class is no good either as everyone else bounds off to pick up Ethel, Mildred
and George (their children, not their grandparents! Turns out this year’s big
naming craze is ‘pick an Edwardian name, any Edwardian name. Sure, she’ll grow
into it by the time she’s seventy!’). Yep, making friends in Hampstead would be
a lot easier if I was part of the yummy mummy brigade but that seems like a
pretty extreme solution to the friend problem so let’s not go there (plus, the
Hampstead yummy mummies scare the life out of me – so toned, so stylish, so
bitchy – actually, they probably warrant their own post! That’s one friendship
group I don’t want to join!).
Hmmm. If
yoga’s no good, what about the gym? So many group classes, so many potential
new friends. You name it, I tried it. Boxfit. Aerobiking. Funky Bums and Tums
(yes, really). Pilates. Zumba. And many more. In terms of potential friends,
the classes were great. Almost all the classes were filled with women just like
me: late 20s/early 30s, all very friendly and smiley. But…problem 1: Have you
ever tried striking up a conversation in the middle of an aerobics class when
you’re mostly knackered and almost out-of-breath? It ain’t easy. In fact, it’s
pretty much impossible!
The classes
also threw up another problem. Yes, there were lots of potential friends, but
often they were attending the class with friends they already had. Sometimes,
there just wasn’t room in the group for me. One day, I was having a really nice
chat with two other girls who had arrived early for a class. They were lovely. I
didn’t want to get ahead of myself but I’d mentioned that I was new to the area
and I did think that maybe, just maybe, I could get over my innate shyness and
suggest that we meet for coffee. Then, their other friend turned up. She was
basically the Hampstead version of me. The sarky pessimist role was already
filled in that little group. No vacancies. The three of them set off to zumba
and I decided it was a lost cause and went to the gym instead.
Okay, so
the whole fitness-friends thing wasn’t working. Maybe it was time to try a
different tack. Welcome to the weird world of ‘friendship-dating.’ It’s
basically like online dating, only for friends. You sign up to a website (such
as citysocialising or meetup), key in your location and interests and up pops a
range of socials that you can attend. So, I tried a few, and I went along with
an open-mind.
Well. It
turns out that the ‘friend-dating’ websites aren’t just sort of like standard
dating websites; they basically are dating websites masquerading under
the guise of ‘just friends.’ Online dating for people who don’t want to admit
they’re online dating (‘Me? A dating website? Noooo. Never. I’m just looking
for friends.’). Harumph. I had a few evenings listening to sad middle-aged
divorcees droning on and on about ‘that bitch’ before they segued
none-to-subtly into trying to find wife number 2. Urgh. So I’ve given up
on the whole ‘online-friendship-dating’ thing.
And that’s
it for the moment. This turned out to be a strange little post. There’s no
happy ending yet. But I love London so I’ll keep trying. Somewhere in this
fabulous city there has to be a lovely group wondering how on earth they’re
going to fill that sweet but sarky Northern Irish vacancy.
Right?
*Non-work
friends, obviously, I have awesome – and friendly - colleagues but I don’t
think I can really give myself any credit for meeting them – they’re sort of
stuck with me for 8 hours a day!
